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Stream settings

A "stream" is the base concept of media in MistServer. All media going in and/or out of MistServer is a stream. A stream can be live or on-demand, use the Pro wildcard feature or not, have configured triggers or not, have configured automatic pushes or not, etcetera.

Regardless of whether a stream is configured through the web interface or the API, the method of configuration and the options available are the same.

All streams have two main settings that are mandatory and must at all times be configured for the stream to function at all. These are the stream name and stream source settings. In addition to these, depending on the source value used, more mandatory and/or optional settings may be available.

"Stop sessions" can be used to completely disconnect any incoming or outgoing connections involving the stream for a complete reset.

Stream name​

The stream name is the name that is used internally (and, unless overridden through triggers or other means, by default also externally) to refer to a specific media stream.

A stream name may be no more than 100 single-byte characters long, and only the lower-case letters A-Z, numbers, and underscores are allowed in the stream name.

Upper case characters will be converted to lower case, but any other characters in a stream name will be thrown away silently. In other words, setting a stream name to "Test-Stream-1" will result in the stream name "teststream1" to be used instead. This works both when configuring a stream and when accessing a stream later, ensuring consistency.

When using wildcards, a plus symbol (+) or single space (either symbol may be used interchangeably) separates the stream name from the wildcard specifier. The wildcard specifier itself may contain any character, as long as the length of the entire string including stream name, separator and wildcard specifier stays within the limit of 100 bytes. UTF-8 encoding is assumed, but it is safe to use other encodings. Other encodings will not display correctly, however.

Stream source​

The source of a stream defines literally just that: the source of the media data. It is a simple text field, and in its simplest form is merely the full path to a file that needs to play, but often it will be a URI representing a more complex resource.

The following categories should provide you with more information:

Always on​

Some source types have this option available, but not all of them do. Normally, MistServer automatically shuts down inputs/streams when no outputs are requesting them. This option, when enabled, instead keeps the stream active permanently. This means the stream will be using system resources continuously, but also allows MistServer to keep certain inputs active for pushing/pulling into MistServer without the need for an active viewer